I had no idea that schools were now hiring security guards to enforce anti-crumb-spilling laws. The floors must really shine in Palmdale high schools — get a little sloppy with lunch, and the guards will break your arm and arrest you. And your mother. And the kid with the cell phone who catches it all on video.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
That’s just fucking stellar. What, is this ass-face on permanent terror alert red?
I’ll put down a hundred bucks that his fat Dorito-eating ass has high hopes for joining the local police force.
Not that the incident isn’t potentially outrageous, but the original source cited by Feministe does give me pause: Infowars.org. I’ve encountered it before, and it tends towards crankery of the New World Order conspiracy-mongering type. (For example, there are links to 9/11 Truther sites in the ads there, among other dubious links.)
Not that the story isn’t correct–this time. However, I’d be very careful about citing Infowars.org as a primary source for anything unless there were corroborating sources that I considered reliable. It’s basically the same thing as citing WorldNet Daily.
Ah, here’s another source.
Excuse me Orac, but are you suggesting 9/11 wasn’t a controlled-demolition inside job in which the Air Force was ordered to stand down while top-secret stealth MiGs (jointly developed by the CIA and the KGB–Cold War my ass!) shot down Flight 77 before it could hit the pentagon (where is the wreckage?) so that we wouldn’t question where Pinochet was on the 28th anniversary of his so-called “coup” (he was having his brain implanted in a clone of Arnold Schwartzenegger who then became Governor to replace Gray Davis who was unfriendly to Saudi Oil magnates)?
You’ve totally been brainwashed by the corporations who control the media.
that’s going to be one bare-bones district once the inevitable settlements are paid out …
This kind of stuff makes me SO angry. Security guards are supposed to be there to protect children, not manhandle them like unruly herd animals! Security guards are not police and do not have any authority! (Police are supposed to be there to protect people, too, not arrest them for upholding justice.)
I’m not a very good X-wing pilot, but where do I sign up for the Rebel Alliance?
Would have considered the possibility that the guard was previously trying to get hired to work for Blackwater instead, but he fell short of the requirements. He didn’t actually manage to kill anyone.
No worries, ZorkFox, we’ll always have room for people willing to die running from an AT-AT.
Party foul! Lick it up!
Read the articles, watched both videos, still think there is a lot of missing info here. Such as the other side of the story. I’m not saying security didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just saying we don’t have the full story. Also surprising that we jump to conclusions without considering all information. Seems kinda hypocritical.
Appalling.
Some video.
So let me get this straight:
A young, black, female student at a high school was jolted in the dinner queue and drops her birthday cake. She is told to clear it up and does so. She is then told her work is unsatisfactory and told to clean it up again. She is again told her cleaning is sub par and repeats the cleaning again.
She then gets embarrassed and tries to leave, at which point a large, white campus security guard grabs her and puts her arm behind her back and forces her across a desk so violently that her wrist is broken. This is filmed by another student who is also then attacked.
Hmmmmmm.
Bitch deserved it. As did the scum with the camera.
I wonder if the student who dropped the cake was also a muslim or an atheist. That would make it even better and mean she deserved it all the more. When will women, children, blacks and heathens learn their place? Honestly what is the world coming to. She should get the death penalty. And her whore of a mother should be taken out to the mesa and shot along with other dissidents, trouble makers and undesirables.
Oh wait, did I make a booboo?
Louis
P.S. Just in case the above is a joke. I think this event is a travesty. Glad I’m not in the USA.
Well hopefully the settlement will be enough to send her to college. I really hope they sue the hell out of the school.
Maybe he’ll be back doing security at walmart now.
Nice. Real nice.
Palmdale is up on the edge of the Mojave Desert, and is already pretty “bare-bones.” They do have the Roy Rodgers museum though. Maybe that’s a source of this cowboy attitude.
William J. “Pete” Knight High School
Named in honor of the California Politician who sponsored the “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” initiative.
His widowed wife is similarly sponsoring another “stricter” measure right now: http://ag.ca.gov/cms_pdfs/initiatives/2007-05-26_07-0023_Initiative.pdf
Perhaps we ask too much from school named for intolerance to be intolerant itself.
Don’t taze me bro’
Coming fascist state? What, the news hasn’t reached western Minnesota yet?
Sign that guard up with Blackwater. It pays better than school security and you can kill people with impunity.
Brownian: Aha! You did watch “Zeitgeist” then, didn’t you?! LOL.
In line with the old canard about the Presidency, I think anyone who wants to be a police officer/security guard should be summarily disqualified from actually being one.
And if that doesn’t go through, we can at least pass a law forbidding police academy dropouts from getting jobs as security guards.
From ABC:
Mervin says when the security guard realized he was being videotaped, he tackled the student shooting the video. She says another student captured photographs of that incident.
I’d like to watch the video, but I’m afraid the guard may beat me up. Anyone know where he is?
High school looks like so much fun, these days. So cake on the floor equals you get beaten up by a uniformed thug? Someone’s lost perspective. Apparently a lot of someone’s. And I’m thinkin’: hell, even if it had been a freakin’ food fight with cake flying everywhere, breaking wrists and jumping on people with cameras, that’s more than a bit of an overreaction.
If this report accurately describes the incident (or I guess series of incidents), then our country is lost. Rebel Alliance? Fine. Let’s roll. I bet I shoot better than any of these assholes. My oath was against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Seems to me that these guys qualify as the latter.
Ugh, like there aren’t enough bullies in schools. Hired goons – get them used to it.
Here’s the local news links:
Parents angry over Knight High melee
and
Knight High target of protesters
You’ve got a point Deepsix, but I really can’t see what mitigating factors could account for this mook going off like that. I came upon a road rage scene where a gorilla about the size of this doofus had punched through the driver’s side window of a vehicle that he had claimed cut him off, and was beating the living crap out of the guy inside. I stopped the guy and got a bystander to call the police, all without throwing a punch, breaking any wrists, or getting physical in any way. This crapstick needs a few lessons in conflict resolution.
Holy hell! we’re actually getting toward the point where we need to arm our children so they can be safe from THE SCHOOL!
Transmetropolitan is no longer satire. A sad day indeed.
re #14: oops…just realized I confused Palmdale with Victorville. It’s an easy mistake to make. Carry on.
Quite right too. Dropped crumbs one day, King George III back in charge the next.
That’s a great story, Brownian, which also demonstrates the insanity of gun control. I’m sure if everyone involved had been packing some heat, there wouldn’t have been any nasty punching or beating at all. Everybody knows that an armed society is a polite society.
first, reports don’t agree: were those guards “campus police” or “campus security”?
trying to process this mentally, i keep coming back to the fact that the “follow-up” arrests are perhaps even more outrageous than the initial arrest
the kid filming with his cell phone was also arrested (there are pics of him getting gang-tackled — no explanation why the kid who took those wasn’t also arrested), as was his sister who wasn’t doing anything. let’s see, is a cop/guard in the middle of a lawful arrest worried that its being filmed? uh, probably not … but a cop/guard who *knows* he was in the wrong would be. only dirty cops worry about witnesses
then when the mother threatens (promises?) to press charges against the cop/guard that broke her daughter’s wrist, she gets counter-charged for “shoving” the principal?
come on, i know Creationists smarter and more ethical than this!
Everybody knows that an armed society is a polite society.
Yes, that’s one of those truisms for which there is a lot of backing common sense to fill in for the lack of supporting evidence.
You know, it never occurred to me that he may have been carrying a gun. If I had stopped to think about it, I never would have gotten out of my car.
Anyways, there’s a lot you can do with some non-judgemental speech backed with stern resolve (“I didn’t see who started it, but I can’t have you hitting him anymore. I’m here now and that business is over.”), something this loser needs to learn if he’s going to stay in this business.
#12 Louis
And what awesome country are you in where nobody ever commits a wrong against another? Solla Sollew? I mean, I am troubled and upset by decisions made by people in power here, but we aren’t running death camps (yet).
But seriously. My wife is a nurse, and I’m working on my own degree in the sciences. Surely we must have some value in this mega-nation of universal peace. Where is it? (I promise I won’t tell anyone.)
Steve_C
Well hopefully the settlement will be enough to send her to college. I really hope they sue the hell out of the school.
Maybe he’ll be back doing security at walmart now.
Thing is, any settlement money will come right out of the school budget. In the event that the security guard himself gets sued and loses, he probably won’t be able to afford paying any judgement against him. He looks kinda trailer-trash.
Don’t worry ZorkFox, it’ll be just like hunting womp rats back on Tattoine.
Ezekiel Buchheit,
Ahhhhh the old “My country right or wrong”, right?
Why I’m in Utopia of course. A wonderful nation where the streets are paved with gold and clouds are made from candyfloss (some are even diabetic friendly).
Don’t get your panties in a bunch, sweetie, I have lived in the US of A and loved every minute. Regardless of the fuckedupness of my sweet nation (The UK, FYI), it was a RELATIVE not and ABSOLUTE comment and one based almost entirely on personal preference. We have problems you don’t. You have problems we don’t.
Try to understand that one can appreciate the finer aspects of a nation (or indeed anything) and at the same time appreciate the less fine aspects. As it stands I live in a 1st world country with few of the criminal drawbacks of the USA, we have our own criminal drawbacks to be sure, but they are rarely armed. Although that said, they seem to be getting more armed of late, the cheeky blighters.
The post was a joke, try to understand it as such and you will do a whole lot better.
Toodle pip
Louis
Oh and P.S. We’re working on our own death camps over here. race you to the finish! I reckon we’ll get there first, we Europeans have experience with the death camps.
When I saw the guard’s name, Chris Neimeyer, it rang a bell in my head. It was pretty close to a famous movie character from Animal House, but the name is slightly different, and Doug Niedermayer, gets killed by his own troops in Vietnam.
However, something tells me that if Chris Neimeyer went to Iraq…
Louis, methinks that The Clash’s “I’m So Bored With The USA” should be played for Ezekiel Buchheit.
As for death camps; were they not a more continantal event?
Neimeyer!
DEAD!
Wooooooo! Money!
There is no way that the girl cant get a substantial sum of money from the school for this. Obviously it sucks that it happened. But, we are talking BIG payola.
I recognize the comment for what it is. I’m just remarking on specific aspect of the comment and the context which spurred (more heavy-handed idiocy in the US).
And really, it was in response to every knee-jerk reaction that pops up whenever some whack-job in the US does some craziness – there is often enough somebody commenting on how pleased they are to not be in the US. You were just the most recent example of that and my lack of sleep/ growing school work / horrible little offsrping / everything else had annoyed me to the point that in my haze, I said (wrote) something.
And no, I don’t have a US flag tattooed on my ass. But I do drive a red, white, and blue Humvee with a vanity plate the says” NASCAR.” I do this along the US/Mexican border, occasionaly stopping to scrape illegals out from the grill.
Really, Deepsix? And exactly what do you imagine that the “other side of the story” could possibly consist of that would justify an adult security guard breaking a child’s wrist?
a security guard? What the hell was it his business anyway if there was cake on the floor?
This seems to be a metaphor for Dumbya’s fake anti-terrorism crusade.
When I was at university in Southern New Zealand, my college (dorm to you Americans) not only had a dress code for meals (shirt, jacket and tie for evening meals xcept Sat). But the student body enforced certain standards of behaviour. One of these was ‘thou shalt not drop food upon the floor’ designed to encourage decorous eating. On observing a fellow student transgressing this rule you closed your fist and banged it repeatedly on the table in front of you. This was then taken up by everyone else and the miscreant was expected to leave the dining hall, they were allowed to take their meal with them.
After the meal was over a ‘bathing party’ was then formed from volunteers and the miscreant sought and restrained. They were then transformed in the prone position, face down, limbs clamped and if resisting a strong arm clamped around their middle. They were taken out to the quad where sat, year round an old fashioned cast iron bathtub next to a tap. The miscreant was then bathed in punishment for their dirty deed by virtue of being pushed head first into the brimming tub.
In the winter term nobody wished to the be the ‘icebreaker’. The wearing of inappropriate clothing or ripped clothing to dinner could also get you bathed. As could it being your birthday or at the end of the year the crime of not having been bathed yet (yours truly fell into that category). Ah such happy days.
Some minor corrections to #14.
The Museum was in Apple Valley (off the I15) not Palmdale, off CA14.
Second it is “Rogers” not Rodgers.
Third, it is now in Branson, MO:
http://www.royrogers.com/
What the hell is wrong with schools today? Fifty years ago, there were no security guards in schools, no school police, no guns, no clubs, no pepper spray, no handcuffs, no lockups.
We got by with just the faculty, assisted by the school safety patrol to help kids cross streets safely.
I don’t have the answers, but obviously the great bulk of us are missing some crucial insight.
You don’t have a US flag tattooed on your ass? Damn! I do. I lost a bet, long story. Nice work on immigration control, I’ll suggest it to my local Tory candidate.
Maybe I’d have been clearer too, if it hadn’t been for the post work bottle of Macon Villages. No worries.
For the record I hate knee-jerk anti-Americanism too. I like my anti-Americanism well thought out and witty! ;-)
Have a good one.
Louis
If the early info. is accurate, I hope the girl gets a nice College trust fund out of it. Much as I dislike litigation at the drop of a hat (or piece of birthday cake), its the only way for the school district to be accountable for some asshole security guard’s behavior. Growing up we called them rent-a-cops.
A bit of context. Palmdale was the BIG center of KKK activity in the Los Angeles area during the sixties. It has also been an area of racial conflict for the last four decades. A little north is Edwards Air Force base. Of right stuff, Chuck Yeager, and first shuttle landing fame. Near to there is Mojave Airport. The penultimate aircraft boneyard. A wonderful place to visit (if you are into that sort of thing).
Well, the girl was arrested for “battery,” maybe she attacked the security guard in some way. That seems extremely unlikely though, and if it were the case, it seems like we would have heard that by now.
It’s an outrageous situation. I don’t know if it’s indicative of a movement towards a fascist state, but it does make me wonder just how often things like this occur when there is *not* someone around with a camcorder in their car, or the presence of mind to use their cell phone camera to tape an injustice. When it boils down to “he said, she said,” do stories like this even get covered?
Oops, I screwed the blockquote tags up. Should have gone to bed anyway. Good night.
Oops, I screwed the blockquote tags up. Should have gone to bed anyway. Good night.
“For the record I hate knee-jerk anti-Americanism too. I like my anti-Americanism well thought out and witty! ;-)”
Did you say “Poodle Tip” old chap?
Oh, never mind, I stand corrected, twas “Toodle Pip”,oh dear, I do apologize, upon occasion my comprehension of the Anglo Saxon vernacular can be a bit doggy you know.
Cheers!
Anecdote: I know someone from Palmdale. She hates it.
Sigh. This is a tragic state of affairs which could have been avoided. It all started when the McCarthyists rammed “under God” into The Pledge…
You are aware that the event was captured on video, right?
Frankly, we have to teach these irresponsible children a lesson they don’t soon forget. I think the dismissal of the entire administration, security, and bankrupting the school district would be a nice start. What, did you think I meant the poor students who were attacked? No, the children are the ones who escalated this into a major incident. At least emotionally, they’re the children.
“Battery” is _not_ shorthand for use of a “battery-operated recording device” — and is there any more real news about this?
I could work up a really scary “Lord of the Flies” script where the eeevillll children set up the patriotic but dumb security guard …. nah.
Well, the girl was arrested for “battery,” maybe she attacked the security guard in some way.
His ego was offended by her insufficient servility.
Sure, this looks like a monstrous example of child abuse by a petty tirant, but when will you cynics ever learn? 9/11 changed everything! Sheesh.
Look at how the security guards are dressed and act. It looks more like a military training camp, or even a prison guard uniform than anything else.
Admit that there is a need for such security, the schools could at least have them dress in suits or sports coats to not make them look like such prison guards.
In this case, it is hard to see how a beefy, fat-assed 250-pound skinhead guard could feel threatened by a 16-year old girl. That guy is a coward and a wimp, as well as being dumber than a stump. But he must think he is a real macho, but he is simply a thug.
“Really, Deepsix? And exactly what do you imagine that the “other side of the story” could possibly consist of that would justify an adult security guard breaking a child’s wrist?”
For starters, we don’t know how her wrist was broken. Did she try to slap him and he blocked it and thus broke her wrist? Who knows? And contrary to statements above, this was not on video- only part of the event was captured.
Sure, maybe the guy is a knuckle-dragging raving racists who looks for opportunities to beat up 15 year old black females. The media reports clearly wants to make this look like the girl was beaten for dropping a piece of cake. I doubt it’s that simple.
I just find it so ironic that we critcize IDists and others for drawing conclusions without having all the facts, or considering all the evidence, yet here we are doing the same thing. Don’t the majority of us make judgements only after we have analyzed all the available information? Yet I bet 90% of the people who read the headline made up their minds right then.
We’ve seen this type of thing before. Drawing conclusions based from only preliminary reports. The Duke rape case comes to mind.
Peter Ashby (#44): You forgot to add an important disclaimer: “No sheep were sexually assaulted during the performance of the rites described herein.”
Deepshit:
And that would somehow justify his actions?
It’s just hard to envision how an incident involving a child dropping a piece of cake onto the floor should logically escalate into two children with broken wrists and one of them pinned against a lunchroom table. Even if she had thrown the cake on the floor on purpose, laughed maniacally, and taunted the security guard about it afterwards, it’s still hard to imagine this as a logical outcome of any normal lunchroom monitor “just doing his job” — call me old-fashioned. The fact that other guard tries to stop somebody from videotaping it certainly doesn’t help things look better, either — if everything really was on the up-and-up, you’d think they’d want more evidence, not less. I’m sure we’ll hear more about this in coming months.
“Deepshit”
Wow. I try to have a rational conversation and you resort to name calling. Impressive.
You are aware that the event was captured on video, right?
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 3, 2007 7:14 PM
Video shmideo, she needed to be taken DOWN!
His ego was offended by her insufficient servility.
Posted by: Graculus | October 3, 2007 11:45 PM
Bingo…
About once every three or four years or so, in one of the many thousands of schools across the USA, some unpopular kid decides he’s had it up to his eyeballs with the years of harassment he’s suffered while the “authorities” told him to “just ignore it” and shows up at school with an arsenal. This tends to send parents into a panic, even though Precious Snowflake is at least as likely to be hit by a school bus as mowed down by a Dylan Klebold. So school districts end up with all the things you name.
Expecting some minimal standard of common decency toward the unpopular kid never seems to occur to anybody. The Heathers needn’t be expected to be friends with the geeks, but there’s no excuse for not expecting the Heathers to leave the geeks in peace.
Also at Pandagon. Complete with deepsix (as deep6) trolling goodness.
Pardon. The troll at Pandagon is cookie, not deep6.
Yeah, Ray C., that isn’t me. Never been to that site until you linked to it.
Damn, a guy tries to show there are two sides to every story and suddenly he’s labeled as a “troll”.
I guess I didn’t show the proper amount of outrage based on preliminary information. And here I thought us atheists were critical, independent thinkers. My bad.
I’m sorry deepsix, but the only kind of action warranting her broken wrist, if then, taking the size disparity into account, is if the girl actually tried to physically attack him with a weapon of some kind. Even then, I am only 1.68m and 55Kg and up until my health deteriorated a few years ago I worked as a volunteer for many years in night shelters and day centres and regularly had to restrain people, many much bigger than me, on drugs or drink who had turned violent and have never injured anyone when defending myself and others while restraining and bringing the attacker under control and have only ever been mildly hurt myself a couple of times. Admittedly a long long time ago in special forces I learnt plenty of useful techniques for restraining people without injuring them. But still, for a thug his size not to be able to handle a girl her size without injuring her is a joke, irrespective of her actions.